ug‧ly [uhg-lee] offensive to the sense of beauty; displeasing in appearance

what you get is to be changed.

by theuglyearring

“… this is freedom. This is the force of faith. Nobody gets what they want. Never again are you the same. The longing is to be pure. What you get is to be changed. More and more by each glistening minute, through which infinity threads itself, also oblivion, of course, the aftershocks of something at sea. Here, hands full of sand, letting it sift through in the wind, I look in and say take this, this is what I have saved, take this, hurry. And if I listen now? Listen, I was not saying anything. It was only something I did. I could not choose words. I am free to go. I cannot of course come back. Not to this. Never. It is a ghost posed on my lips. Here: never.”

and this from the wiki page:
Hung in a child’s hair or on the walls of homes, or tied to the ends of arrows, the sikuli’s main purpose is to ensure children a long and healthy life.When a child is born, the central eye is woven by the father. Then one eye is added for every year of the child’s life until the youngster reaches the age of five. The resulting design in the shape of a cross symbolizes the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. The Ojo de Dios is the most well known symbol. The Indians believe the design of the eye has the power to heal and to protect. The Ojo de Dios is hung on the wall and used in ceremonies and prayer.

Maybe my thinking regarding politics and political activity have influenced my voice, or my sense of “station,” of where the body is speaking from when it uses the mind? I am thinking of the poems in Sea Change, but also of some in Overlord and Never. It would be hard to exclude from my whole being an acute sense of the political — the human — disaster we are both waking up to, and realizing our appalling role in. War, torture, extinction, climate peril — most of the world is in less denial than the US regarding the real disasters that climate change is bringing about — hunger, water-scarcity, wars generated by water-scarcity…. For myself, I wonder what being human would feel like if I didn’t eye the Spring nervously to make sure bees are coming back, for example, or birds. I find it hard not think about animal extinction — and my consciousness, in general, is more than ever before deeply aware of other species than our own — I find it hard to just block them out — species with whom, after all, we are meant to share this place. I spend a lot of time trying to participate in the various movements and consciousness-raising activities surrounding climate peril — both man-made and man-forced. Of course this is not in the least required of any artist — many wonder-inducing works are being made by people who write out of the private life exclusively. But maybe something in the voice of the more recent poems has widened its aperture in order to be more of a “species” voice, less of an individual lyric voice? I think many poets are wrestling with this right now. I am always encouraging my students to try to write in the voice of something not human — not that this is a thing one could actually do — but it is a very tonic illusion, a very existentially bracing exercise. Maybe these things — these deep sadnesses and fear — have made my voice, well, more mature. What can I say. I am older! I think I know more than I did, unfortunately, when I started out.